Wise Up
by Dear Aunt Elladora
Summary: Taylor McKessie attempts to rationalize Chad Danforth. Using her teeth. Slight Chaylor.


Chad Danforth was a little like getting your wisdom teeth out, Taylor rationalized.

He was inconvenient and moderately nerve-wracking, best handled with sedation and medication, this necessary evil to be faced in her late teen years; able to be ignored, but eventually must be tackled to prevent permanent damage.

(Despite being the top of her class, metaphors never were Taylor's thing.)

Still, she's known Chad for years. And while New Mexico is a big state (fifth by size, thirty-sixth by population) and their school zone seemingly huge, he's been in her homeroom for years. Since seventh grade when she was brand new, glittering braces and shining shoes, her polo tucked in to make a good impression -- he's twenty minutes late and daring to charm his teacher, sloppy with untied tennis shoes.

That first year, he has cornrows. She counts them to pass the time. Thinks about untying them, untidying them, making just as big a mess to match the rest of him. His assignments are crumpled and his shirt dangerously half-tucked, and he frustrates the hell out of her.

Then basketball season starts and she realizes his charm is only a warm-up for his ego. He's _Chad Danforth_; he plays middle school basketball, which is apparently a whole lot more important than any academic achievement. Ever.

And its kindof archaic and Taylor bends to the system; she's proud and she's making friends with similar interests. Goals beyond a gym, an auditorium at best; she has merit and an upper hand and a stiff jaw and two years later, she's a freshman staring at the same head of hair.

He's still charming and she wonders if he still knows her name -- like she's a joke, an invisible, unimportant, really. Because high school basketball is some magnificently larger thing, and she's a _mathlete _and sure they get varsity sweatshirts, but isn't that kindof a joke?

He doesn't forget her, though: he becomes a classroom nuisance, asking to borrow her notes after blatantly falling asleep in class, winking at her after particularly disturbing comments. He accidentally drops almost everything -- his pencils, his books, his breakfast bar -- at her feet, then gives her this look-over, as if she'll pick anything of his up.

All in all, Chad Danforth is kindof scary, but really more irritating than anything else.

He feeds this system, this deadlocked high school idea where jocks rule their segregated societies. A rigid caste system that has her sitting at a lunch table usually occupied by more books than actual trays while Chad Danforth, central to the entire organized mess filling the cafeteria, chats up some cheerleader who never really takes off her uniform.

Taylor doesn't really realize she's bought into the system until Gabriella comes. Until someone challenges her niche she's developed, threatens whatever safety she's found knowing her place, not acting out. Gabriella is smart but pretty-eyed, wants to date a basketball player, and initially, Taylor is pissed off.

Well, first, she's a little stunned, because basketball players spend their free time making inappropriate jokes, engaging in inane, sports-related debates. If Gabriella could really derive the quadratic formula before sixth grade, she shouldn't be messing around with _Troy Bolton._

Because, with Gabriella getting call-backs and looks of longing, she's disrupting everything that Taylor's come to trust. Gabriella's making it okay for Chad Danforth to seek out her counsel, to corner her and share his master plans of destruction. And he synchronizes their watches and sneaks her smiles that are still basically indecent, but somehow personal, and even more terrifying than he ever has been.

Untidying his hair takes all new meaning, and she's embarrassed and she almost hates herself, befriending this _necessary evil. _And to make consistent with the metaphor, she begrudgingly admits that getting her wisdom teeth is a lot like breaking down the walls dividing her from Chad Danforth: while painful and uncomfortable at times, overcome after merely a few days of getting used to their absence.

(She still can't figure out how to finish the metaphor considering it never started off very well, but it's the winter of her senior year when she gets all four cut out, and Chad brings her pudding and sci-fi movies and sits on her bed, trying his hardest not to laugh at her swollen cheeks.

He does, eventually, because she really does look like a chipmunk, and she knows he's not being condescending, so she lets him curl up beside her. Just for now.)

**post notes: **written a month or two ago and put up on lj around then; the length and formatting tis not my best. Oh, well: Chaylor all other pairings. Ever. In existence. Except maybe RPS with Eli Manning. And no, I can't get over the Giants winning last night: BEST. GAME. EVER. Okay, all of this is unnecessary. Please review. And don't roast me for the awful metaphor I tried to create in this.


End file.
